The Top Secret Consultation

In any other industry, the most important people to ascertain the views of would be the customer. Almost every chain restaurant these days offers you a discount or small freebie at your next visit after you've eaten with them in exchange for completing a survey afterwards. In the bus industry, some operators do such things;…

Mis- (traffic) -management

Modern technology has given us many benefits, such as being able to see where road issues are causing delays. The photo below shows the GoogleMaps Traffic results for the Monday afternoon traffic tailbacks due to a set of roadworks near the Banwell Road junction on the Wellsway in Bath. (Base image, copyright Google) You can…

The Official Citistar Guide to: Avoiding a Crisis

The residents have been revolting. The residents are upset. The buses have changed, but nobody told them. Not that any of them actually use the service, but they're upset on behalf of the people who do use them. Both of them. Over the past few days, the residents of Timsbury (a village in B&NES) have…

Expand to Survive

A couple of weeks ago, i stayed up late watching an awkward film on BBC Two. Dennis Quaid and Zac Effron starred as father and son of a dysfunctional family whose business centred around corn and farm machinery in the American Mid-West. During an opening movement which showed the business to be under threat (and…

How the neighbours do it

Previous reading regarding this post can be found in "The Impossible Dream", in which i made some predictions regarding North Somerset tendering. 50% of my predictions were correct, although i underestimated how keen First would be to push back against the seemingly unstoppable expansion of Crosville in Weston-super-Mare. There has since been a significant retrench…

Pushing an Agenda

First had a difficult day in Bath last Thursday. Following a serious road accident immediately outside their Weston Island depot at 3am in the morning, the police closed the road in order that their investigations could take place for around nine hours. This prevented First from getting any of their buses out on the road.…